


Everything's More Fun with a Partner in Crime

by biextroverts



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Detention, F/F, Private School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 13:38:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5628550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biextroverts/pseuds/biextroverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Piper McLean and Rachel Dare both want out of their fancy private school. The solution? Get into so much trouble the school decides to kick them out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything's More Fun with a Partner in Crime

     “I'll be gone for several minutes. _Don't_ get into any trouble.”

     As she attempts to push herself through the latest in a series of seemingly nonsensical trigonometry worksheets, Piper considers the irony of Mme. DuPre's parting admonition – the fact that she and her ilk are in detention means they probably have a penchant for trouble, after all. And exacerbating this is the fact that there are only two of them there, and Piper is pretty sure that the other girl is as consistent a detention attendee as she is. She tries to figure out the functions and numbers on her paper, but none of them seem to make sense.

     “So, you trying to get thrown out, too?”

     Piper looks up from the trig worksheet and turns her head to look at the girl who's spoken. She's a familiar face by now; though Piper still doesn't know her name, she could probably summon up the round face with its freckles and its impish smile and the tide of red curls from memory if she wanted to. “Sorry?” she says.

     “This is like your tenth time in detention this month,” the girl says. She hits the ball with the paddle again, then looks straight at Piper, her green gaze both mirthful and frighteningly intense, “and it's the seventeenth. So either you have absolutely no grasp of the fact that actions have consequences, or you want them to kick your ass out of this school.” 

     The ball clatters against the paddle and then bounces off, but the girl doesn't seem to notice. Piper feels like she's being studied, like all her deepest secrets are on display. It's not a feeling she's used to, and, while she doesn't get the sense that this girl would use what she finds against her, Piper still has to struggle not to squirm under the scrutiny. “Um...” she says, not really sure how to respond to the girl's matter-of-factness.

     The girl laughs. She sets the paddle down on the table. “I'm not gonna tell if you do,” she tells Piper, grinning. “It's my twelfth time here this month.”

     Piper nods, nonplussed. “Are _you_ trying to get thrown out?” she asks.

     “I said 'too', didn't I?” The girl pulls a pen from the pocket of her skirt. She sticks her leg out so that her foot rests on the desk next to hers and begins to doodle on her inner thigh. Piper tries not to stare, but something about the other girl's nonchalance pulls her in. “So,” she says, searching for a topic of conversation, “why do you want to get kicked out?”

     The girl glances up at Piper, like she's already forgotten she's there. “Same reason you do, probably,” she says, returning to her scribbling. Her skirt has slid up a little, revealing pale skin. “This school's full of privileged rich kids.”   

     Piper laughs. They may be in detention, but the both of them are at the academy, annual tuition fifty thousand dollars. The girl can't claim to be living below the poverty line. “And you are?”

     “Oh, a privileged rich kid,” says the girl, not looking up, “but I acknowledge it. That's the difference between me and them.”

     “I see.”

     The girl looks at Piper again. Piper wonders if her eyes ever lose that manic intensity, or if her face ever loses that geniality – the wild hair and the freckles certainly add to both those characteristics, but even by itself her expression is that of a friendly madwoman. “I thought you would...”

     “Piper,” Piper supplies.

     The girl nods. “Piper,” she repeats. “I'm Rachel. Rachel Dare.”

     The name fits the look – and the demeanor – as perfectly as if the girl had chosen it for herself. “Seriously?” Piper says, eyebrows raised. “Dare?”

     Rachel looks at her as if she's perfectly aware of the irony – is it irony? she really should pay attention in English class. “There something wrong with my surname?” she asks with perfect mock obliviousness.

     Piper laughs. “No, I just –”

     And then, because the Cherokee gods must hate her for being a bad Indian or something – she seriously cannot think of any other reason her that her luck is so incredibly and consistently rotten – Mme. DuPre chooses that exact moment to reenter the room. Piper doesn't think she's strayed farther than any other kid who's one-quarter Native American, but she's sort of given up on trying to convince some old gods that she deserves less pain and suffering in her life.

     “Hello, Madame DuPre,” she says with as much charm as she can muster.

     Mme. DuPre looks down her nose at Piper, as unimpressed as anyone has ever been when Piper has turned on the charm. “McLean!” she barks, like she's a drill sergeant instead of a French teacher at a privileged rich kid private school, “I said no talking! Are you incapable of following orders?”

     “No, ma'am,” Piper says graciously. She wonders if batting her eyelashes would be too much.

     Mme. DuPre wrinkles her nose as Piper imagines one would if they smelled rotting garbage, or the cafeteria chili, or the abandoned third floor science lab in the Dodds building where the crew kids go to get ridiculously high. “I don't believe you, McLean,” she says. “You've earned yourself another detention.”

     “But I –”

     Mme. DuPre looks down at her. “Do you want another?”

     Piper hangs her head. She prefers getting detentions on her own terms. “No, ma'am.”

     “Then you would do best to keep your mouth shut for the remainder of the hour.” Mme. DuPre goes and sits down at her desk at the front of the room. She looks supremely uncomfortable, and Piper wonders if one can have a literal stick up their ass. It's the only explanation she can think of for Mme. DuPre hating everyone so much – hell, it's not like she has to deal with Piper in trigonometry. She's _good_ at French.

     Rachel leans forward in her seat. “Eleven!” she whispers loudly, sounding impressed. “Sweet.”

     Mme. DuPre's head snaps up. “That's another detention for you, Dare,” she says. She sniffs. “At the rate you're going, you don't have another term in this academy.”

     Rachel meets Mme. DuPre's eyes – is she even capable of fear? Mme. DuPre is _scary_. “Tragic, ma'am,” she says genially.

     Mme. DuPre narrows her eyes. “That's another detention, Dare,” she says. “Now go back to work.”

     Rachel mutters something Piper can't make out. She pulls out a chemistry worksheet. Piper turns back to her trig, trying to make sense of the proof she's supposed to be doing: 

_cotx/cosx + secx/cotx = (secx)^2cscx_

     She has no clue in heaven or hell what it means.

     Something hits her square between the shoulder blades, and she turns to pick up a paper airplane that's fallen to the floor. She unfolds it. Written in neat, cartoony letters, much better than Piper's own handwriting, is: _We should make this a regular thing; everything's more fun with a partner in crime ;) – RED_

     She scrawls _sounds good_ – _piper_ onto the airplane – the back of a chemistry assignment, she realizes with amusement – and turns and tosses it back to Rachel. Mme. DuPre looks up.

     “McLean! You've just earned yourself another detention”.

     She nods, not even bothering to protest this time. She can practically hear Rachel's grin. A moment later, the airplane comes flying back, one new word written on it : _twelve_.

     Piper smiles and pockets the airplane.

**Author's Note:**

> This is such an odd little ship but I love it a lot.


End file.
